


Battle and Victory

by vanitashaze



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/F, Female Character of Color, Female Protagonist, Femslash, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-02
Updated: 2010-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:51:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitashaze/pseuds/vanitashaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the twelfth form of Quick Bird on Hot Sand all over again: bending her body to a shape impossible and strange, right over left hand, forcing her limbs to adhere to the pattern.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle and Victory

Rodney is teaching her how to use a computer. "Press this," he says, "press this"; seventy-six keys and twenty-four letters and a multitude of symbols she does not understand the purpose of, which he says no one from Earth really does, but uses anyways. The mouse, as it is apparently called, is giving her problems. She tries to move it as he does, with intent, but can only manage short spasmodic bursts, and often unintentionally drags the pictures on her screen - icons, he says - to where they are not supposed to be, or clicks twice when she should not, though she is working on that. So far she has learned how to save, open a writing program, search for files, scroll down the page, watch movies, send an e-mail, turn off the computer, turn on the computer, stall the computer as it tries to do this all at once. "Press CONTROL-ALT-DELETE," he says, "Press F8," and also, "Ow, ow, ow," when she reaches for him. "I bruise easily," he says defensively.

"I have not even touched you yet, Rodney," Teyla says, exasperated.

"Excuse me for being prepared," he snaps, but where his tone is rude and petulant, a child's, his body moves with solid assurance, hands hot and steadying to whatever he touches. There is something reassuring about them, the way they may fumble but never shake. He's too much an earthquake for tremors. "Press this," he says, or at least, she thinks she hears this, the echoing repetition; there's a shadow under his jawline that might be a bruise. Depending on whose gossip one listens to Rodney is very good in bed, or very bad, selfless or selfish, but the general consensus is that the best time to get him into one is the hours after a disaster, the crazy twilight hours that all 'Lanteans know so well, when fear turns to passion, and anger to lust.

The _omne_, her people call it: the weird time, when all judgments are suspended, and one may fight, or scream, or sleep with another woman's lover, and suffer no repercussions in the morning. The few times she has asked of it on other worlds, the Ring always translates it as a variant of "conception".

Athosians know the proper way of things - to leave people to do as they will - but when they can 'Lanteans celebrate. Rodney left the party early, to "supervise repairs"; Sgt. Rainer a few minutes after. The computer is being sluggish again, and she frowns. She can hardly imagine them abed but something in the staccato tap of Rodney's fingers on the keyboard draws them out, a picture with some quality but no shape. Did he touch him with cold precision, with passion, did his hands shake or did he defuse him like a bomb? She presses the keys Rodney has taught her to but the picture on the screen remains motionless save the whirling cursor. The failure is stinging; her mouth tightens, and she does not yell or walk away. It has been a long while since she's felt inept.

"It's stopped," she thinks about saying, or: "The screen is frozen again," because she remembers the terminology, even if she cannot master the practicality. Despite what 'Lanteans think her people are not droneish - "backwards," Rodney would say, as he has casually said of other Irijjin - but the computer thinks in ways she never will, and she knows what Rodney will say if she asks for help. "Press this," he will say, "Press that." She wonders if she treats his lovers like he does his students, and were it not the case, if his lessons could be improved by turning it the other way around.

He's a horrible teacher - then she will be a better student. She's failed before but this will not be a failure. Even Ronon can do this and he spent seven years having everything not absolutely essential stripped away like chitin from the soft-skin underneath; some days he can barely bring himself to talk for the sheer unnecessariness of it and he can still check his email. It's the twelfth form of Quick Bird on Hot Sand all over again: bending her body to a shape impossible and strange, right over left hand, forcing her limbs to adhere to the pattern. Growing herself around the strangeness like a sun eating a planet, devouring her own limitations.

"You don't really need to know more than the basics, anyways," Rodney offers, looking over her shoulder, "because hello, let's face it: Stopping an attack probably isn't going to hinge on your ability to chat and send chain letters."

The first time Charin saw Teyla dance the Quick Bird - the forty-fourth time she'd done it - she'd mistaken the sweat that pricked the corner of Teyla's eyes for tears.

 

*

 

"Well, all of that certainly sounds like an adventure," Kate says. "It's too bad Rodney wasn't really interested in teaching you anything about computers, but then again, it is Rodney we're talking about," as if his existence were a joke in-keeping between them, a running gag.

"Apparently I only need to learn the basics," Teyla says, voice neutral.

"He could have showed you more than just how to turn it off and on," Kate counters. "But I'm glad you found the sensors more to your taste. I would have thought those would be very difficult to understand."

"I'm good at listening," Teyla says, and Kate ducks to hide a smile towards her own lunch, though the smile quickly creases into a frown when she realizes just what that lunch is: "Not-tuna surprise," she explains, and shifts it gingerly over to the side.

"It was very interesting," Teyla continues, and adds, "The sensors, not your salad." Kate laughs. Teyla chews for a moment, thinking, and finally decides on: "I can see why Dr. McKay is so fascinated by his work."

This, too, is neutral. Rodney is her friend, and people tend to view expressing any sort of strong emotion on the subject of Rodney as an invitation to share their own strong opinions of him, which are almost always decidedly less pleasant - but Kate just says thoughtfully, "Yes, that's why I like working with scientists - they're all so passionate, sometimes about the strangest things, but it's - refreshing, really," and she looks up at Teyla, eyes oddly serious, "to see someone love some little part of the world so much."

 

*

 

John is teaching her how to shoot a gun. Feet shoulder width apart, stand with a slight lean forward, foot opposite her Queen-hand in front, as if they have time for these ridiculous formalities of motion, once through the Ring. John doesn't touch her, but he keeps the range cold and his body hot; he's close enough for her to feel his breath moving on the back of her neck, stirring the fine hairs there, raising hackles. She shivers from the warmth, and loads the chamber, pulling and releasing the slide.

"Make sure that -" John starts.

"- my thumb clears the slide," Teyla finishes, gently. "I know. I have done this many times before."

Swing the arm upwards to the proper position. She rests there a moment for show - Teyla can find her sight without having to pause but her lines are perfectly straight; her arms untrembling. It's a display an Athosian would consider ostentatious at best, and that John does not notice. All of this pantomime is a waste of time, as she is already quite proficient, but John smiles and shrugs, disarming for anyone who doesn't know him as well as Teyla does. Technically, he tells her, this is a refresher course; mandatory by order of the SGC. Ronon, she notices, was not required to do anything of the sort, nor was Rodney. She's seen Elizabeth hovering around the range.

"Aim," John says, and Teyla closes her eye. "Fire," he says, and the dummy rocks from the bullets in the middle of its kill-zone. Sometimes she spies Kate down here too. This section - armory and firing range - is mostly military, and her red hair is strange amongst the grey, like wreckage burning through mist. She is never alone. Kate doesn't walk, she accompanies, always part of a pair. If Kate enjoyed casual touch more Teyla wouldn't be surprised to see her glide past on someone's arm, like an Earth debutante-woman Teyla has seen in the movies Kate likes.

Teyla doesn't understand Kate's fascination with these movies, even if they are a historical record of her people, as she claims. Their lives seem so stilted, Teyla had complained. Why dwell on them? Because they knew the rules, Kate had said, the first time, and then afterwards always answers: The costumes are so beautiful.

Kate's not here today, though. The gun clicks - empty - and John hands her a second cartridge, watching her eject the old one and slot the new into place. "Aim," he says, and her eye closes; "Fire." It's almost soothing, this ritual of oncoming murder. Whatever test John is going by doesn't evaluate her ability to maim without a kill. They are not interested in slowing down, buying time, warnings. Kill shots are what they ask for; head and chest. John had once told her that police on his world carried guns and ever since she has wondered.

Teyla thinks, suddenly, that she will find out when Elizabeth's refresher is. John is no laze but he trusts her and has never been one for extra work; perhaps he will let Teyla do the evaluation. She would like to. Breathe over Elizabeth as John breathes over her now, watch her hip and shoulder to correct her stance. Touch her, to position, as that is allowed in John's culture between two women, as long as there is a man in the room. She is curious what Elizabeth will go for first. The shoulder, the abdomen, the throat? Mercy? Perhaps Elizabeth will be horrified, or excited. She'll never say but her breath might catch. Teyla didn't lie to Kate; she is good at listening. The sound of bullets, for example, have always sounded hollow hitting anything but flesh.

"Aim," John says, and she fires.

 

*

 

She's never imagined what the first time with John would be. From the way he kissed, hungry and wanting and not-wanting at once, she can probably guess. As she shot she thought she saw Kate's flame-wreckage hair, and then realized it was a fire extinguisher. This is what it is like for John, she thought, looking over at him, or how it would be if he took anyone to bed, and the thought stayed with her all day. When she passes Kate in the hallway, later, she smiles at the graceful curve of her neck. This is how John would touch his lover, she thinks. They pass with two feet of space in between them.

"I can see why this was forbidden among my people," Teyla will say that night, panting, between the second and third times. "The women would never go back to their men."

"I suppose the men would have to amuse themselves," Kate laughs; for a moment, it sounds genuine, surprising them both. We have to have ground rules, she had once said; this is one of them. Don't stay. Don't reveal. Professionalism, Kate had said. Teyla smoothes her hand over the crumpled, salt-grained sheets - Kate likes to leave her windows open - and then up over the curve of Kate's shoulder, and for a moment, feels tender and forgiving and so utterly unlike John at all. Kate catches her palm and kisses it, tongue darting out to swipe over the creases and bantos-calluses. Not sexual, just - explorative. Like Teyla was a world beyond her gate. _You're beautiful_, Teyla thinks.

"You're beautiful," Teyla says.

She spends the nights in Kate's bed, but never the mornings, and feels closer to John for the distance.

 

*

 

"Good morning, Kanaan," she says.

"Teyla," he replies. "Good morning."

 

*

 

Kate is teaching her how to make love to a woman. Kiss the place on her neck, where the artery jumps up to meet Teyla's lips; nip at her thigh and be rewarded with a groan. Arm goes here, leg goes there, the skin beneath her breast is smooth and skin-salty and if someone goes over someone must go under: these are the things Teyla has learned. Go slow, Kate says. You can do that with a woman. Go fast. You can do that with a woman, too. It's not Teyla's first time with a woman lover but Kate can make her scream. Strange luxury, sound, after spending so much of her life in a thin-walled village. Teyla can bring Kate off with fingers but Kate tongues words on Teyla's sex. For once Teyla is not the experienced one in the ways of the body. That's strange, too.

Athosians would call them the _enari_: the vain ones, wanting a body so close to their own. Covetous Teyla may be but vain she's never been. There's little closeness between them. Kate loves her strength, the musculature of necessity; Teyla loves Kate's softness, the few guilty pounds around her hips that she knows Kate has been trying to lose. No one on Athos would be like this - made of anything but bone and muscle and scant skin. For the most part Teyla couldn't think of a less similar person to Kate than Rodney but in this way they are the same: unspoiled, wasteful. Lavish in the ways of their bodies. The expense of them appeals.

"I like you like this," Teyla murmurs into Kate's skin, as Kate stretches out amongst the sheets, curled and shuddering, for once silent, no platitudes, the war no longer polite. Gorgeous in the ugliness of orgasm. "I like you like this": Into her shoulder, her collarbone, the dip where belly meets thighs, into the contrast of them - dark and light, hard and soft, separate and deeply erotic. In the dark, it is hard to tell, but it seems like Kate is mostly unscarred.

 

*

 

The first time, Kate finds her in the training room, during the early hour Teyla reserves for teaching. She never puts out a bulletin, as some of the scientists do when they wished to instruct, but people listen to her here, when it comes to kicks and blocks and violence; almost always, she has a student.

"Is this a bad time?" Kate asks.

"No," Teyla says.

"If you're still avoiding me I could come back later," Kate says. She is smiling.

"I was not avoiding you," Teyla says. It's true; she wasn't. She simply had other things to do.

"You don't come for our sessions anymore," Kate says.

"I have been very busy," Teyla says. "Doctor Weir feels that in the aftermath of the Genii coup we should reestablish our treaties with our existing trading partners, and if possible seek out new ones. There are many worlds whose sole income depended on the Genii's war efforts. I have been off-world since Tuesday."

This is not precisely untrue, though perhaps it is as far as the truth went. Reestablishing their treaties had been Teyla's idea - though the memo had worn Elizabeth's signature - and per usual to their off-world plans, nothing had actually gone to them. Teyla had spent most of her week in a jumper with Doctors McKay, Wright-Avoy, and Moon - "What do you get when a physicist and two chemists walk into a jumper?" John had muttered when he was commandeered to pilot: "A big fucking mess" - and thus most of her first night back on Atlantis in the shower, scrubbing the sound of Rodney off her skin.

"I understand if you feel uncomfortable around me," Kate says, "but I really do think we were making progress, and I just wanted you to know that my door is open, if you ever want to talk."

"I do not regret it," Teyla says. "What we did."

Kate's expression essentially does not change, but for a moment - so brief Teyla would have thought she imagined it had she been anyone else - her mouth opens into a tiny 'oh': surprise, or perhaps just catching her breath. It was a brisk walk from the nearest jumper, and she sits on a couch for a living.

"I don't suppose you know where we go from here?" Kate asks, finally.

Teyla looks at her, guardedly, as she has been taught to do. Kate's expression is soft and pleasant. Unassuming. Unjudging. She will accept any decision Teyla makes, and Teyla wants, suddenly, to fight her; to have Kate drag her back to bed and kiss her until she cried out; to let her go. She's the more talented at diplomacy but Kate has trained herself to be a mirror - she reflects. Teyla twirls her sticks, to regain some balance or sense of movement, and Kate flinches.

"I do not know," Teyla says, honestly.

Kate nods; she looks thoughtful. Outside, it's still dark, and the light in the room throws reflections of them up against the dark window-glass. They had stood off-center; from that angle, Kate is hidden, and Teyla could see only herself: sticks out, dark face hazy and still, and her body loose, but poised with the possibility of movement, as if her reflection were preparing itself to dance the Quick Bird, and bend over backwards.


End file.
